Research on the Manufacturing and Application of High Precision Corner Cube Retro-Reflectors Using the Counterweight Separator Method

Spaceborne cube corner retro-reflectors (CCRs) are key optical components for achieving high-precision satellite laser ranging. To address the low manufacturing efficiency and the difficulty of controlling dihedral angle offset (DAO) in conventional processing methods, this paper proposes a counterweight separator manufacturing process to control the DAO of CCRs. During the milling-grinding forming, rough machining, and finish machining stages, plate-type batch manufacturing of CCRs is achieved directly through flipping of the backrest fixture. Finite element models were established for different counterweight operating conditions, and the stress and strain distribution characteristics of the CCRs under the counterweight separator process were analyzed through simulation. The results show that the complete manufacturing process enables batch production of high precision CCRs with clear aperture sizes of 8–175 mm, DAO accuracy better than ±0.2 arcseconds, and beam parallelism offset of approximately 1 arcsecond. The overall process flow is simplified, with fast production pace, high efficiency, and reliable quality. The fabricated CCRs have been successfully applied in various satellite laser reflector arrays, providing valuable guidance for future optimization of spaceborne CCR manufacturing processes.